In the
United States, most sperm donations are anonymous. By contrast, many
developed nations require sperm donors to be identified, typically
requiring new sperm (and egg) donors to put identifying information into
a registry that is made available to a donor-conceived child once they
reach the age of 18. Recently, advocates have pressed U.S. states to
adopt these registries as well, and state legislatures have indicated
openness to the idea. This study re-lies on a self-selected convenience
sample to experimentally examine the economic implications of adopting a
mandatory sperm donor identification regime in the U.S. Our results
support the hypothesis that subjects in the treatment (non-anonymity)
condition need to be paid significantly more, on average, to donate
their sperm. When restricting our attention to only those subjects that
would ever actually consider donating sperm, we find that individuals in
the control condition are willing-to-accept an average of $$43 to
donate, while individuals in the treatment group are willing-to-accept
an aver-age of $74. These estimates suggest that it would cost roughly
$31 per sperm donation, at least in our sample, to require donors to be
identified. This price differential roughly corresponds to that of a
major U.S. sperm bank that operates both an anonymous and identify
release programs in terms of what they pay donors.